“How many “ice ages” occurred? How long ago did the last one take place? Why is mankind allowed to continue generating a “greenhouse” effect?”
Based on the nature of his questions, the person asking them had already concluded that there had been several ice ages and that the earth is becoming a greenhouse. I tried to discuss the topic with him, but having a prejudicial viewpoint, he refused any attempt at open bilateral discussion. Maybe he was hesitant to talk with someone with a scientific background – I don’t know.
Some geologists tell us that the earth is about 4.57 billion years old; and if we don’t include the “snowball earth” hypothesis, the earliest ice age (called the Huronian glaciation) took place over two billion years ago. Some tell us that our earth has endured at least five major ice ages with the ice age cycle lasting from 44,000 – 110,000 years. We read “The precise causes of historical Ice Ages are unknown, but likely emerged due to a variety of factors…When the right variables are in place, an Ice Age begins….” I wonder how he came to that amazing conclusion.
Those statements and the accompanying rationale are vague and rather shallow. And their hypotheses on how the ice ages killed the animals do not stand up under scrutiny – especially in light of the current knowledge we have regarding frozen mammoths and mastadons that have been discovered.
According to the uniformitarian’s concept of ice ages, the earth starts getting
colder; and it takes a few years to freeze large sections of fauna, flora, and the earth. Many smaller animals would freeze rapidly and in the oscillation of the daily temperatures they would thaw and be eaten by predators, or rot. And without thinking it through, many folk infer that the larger animals could also freeze solid at glacial temperatures without decomposition setting in. However, the larger animals would die at a slower rate, and because of the body mass and internal heat they would begin decomposing before they completely froze.
We have found many mastodons (4-6 tons) and mammoths (6-8 tons), many of which had undigested food in their mouths and stomachs. The evolutionary thought is that they became extinct in the last ice age – about 12,000 years ago. In that event, the mammoths would have died out at the end of the last ice age that supposedly started about 110,000 years ago. Isn’t it amazing, if that were true, that these animals could continue to live and have young throughout the ice age when there was almost no food – if any at all – then die out at the conclusion of the multi-thousand-year event? That is neither logical nor possible.
When I worked for the Frigidaire Company in the early 1970s, I came across 
research about how cold the home freezer should be. (By the way, it should be set between 0o F to +5o F.) In that research we found that in order to freeze a 2 ton elephant and prevent the food in its mouth and stomach from digesting, the beast needs to freeze solid within 30-45 minutes; and to achieve that goal we need a temperature of 150o below zero Fahrenheit. And to freeze a 6-8 ton beast within 30-45 minutes requires a temperature of -250o F (minus 157o C). However, the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth is -128.6o F. That’s -89.2 C. Obviously, the evolutionary or uniformitarian ice age theories are not scientifically adequate to explain what we find in real life. But the Bible gives us hints as to what happened.
Thinking back on the young man’s questions above, it amazes me that many of the same people who give us the improbable (or impossible) story that huge animals froze solid quickly in a relatively warm ice age (-30 to -130o F) are the same who tell us that mankind is causing the assumed greenhouse effect now. My questions are: 1) If the technology of modern man is the cause of warming the earth now, what caused the warm-up between the mythical ice ages in the millennia gone by? Or 2) If the assumed warm-up events in millennia gone by happened due to natural causes (man wasn’t here to cause them), why blame mankind now? According to the evolutionists’ own hypotheses, we read “Around 130,000-110,000 years ago (the Eemian interglacial), the Earth’s climates were generally much like those of today, though somewhat warmer and moister in many regions.” (Emphasis mine.)
And they accuse mankind of causing a greenhouse effect? Incredible. Obviously there is more to life than what we are teaching in most of our
schools – both public and private. I believe we need to study reality more closely and teach our students more objectively.
We, also, need to teach the truth found in the Holy Bible. You might be surprised at the information – geological, geographical, climatological, and much more – that you can find there; and you start with Genesis 1:1-2. We find that the earth was totally covered with water – not with ice, but water.
Next hint is from geology: we find frozen equatorial vegetation buried in the frozen tundra of Canada and Siberia.
Another hint is in Genesis 2:5 – It didn’t rain before the great flood but the earth was watered by dew and artesian springs.
And one more hint before we quit: Genesis chapter 6 starts the world-wide flood story. Whatever caused the flood also generated other catastrophic geological events – such as the earth being suddenly encumbered with ice. If we stop to think things through logically, we find that the Biblical account makes total sense, even in the scientific areas.
Gene Linzey 